Tongue Chicken

           They have no shame.  They don’t crack under pressure.  They are fractionally psychotic.  They are crazy people that I trust with my life.  I could never do what they do.  What group am I talking about?  Medics.  And their mentality.

            Early on I broke down the different jobs in my squadron to describe to my civilian friends who asked, “What are scouts like?” or “What are infantrymen like” or “What are counter intelligence guys like.”  Infantrymen are simple and like to smash things much like a bull in a china shop.  Scouts are curious creatures that smile if you say, “Whatever you do, don’t push that button” and then they push the hell out of that button.  CI soldiers had to be chameleons, because there was only one per platoon and they weren’t trained to be grunts, but had to start acting like they were.  Then there were the medics.

            “Hey Vance, we’re all hanging out on the first floor if you want to drink,” Trezza proclaimed.

            “Sounds like fun, man. Be down in a few,” I replied.

            In early 2005 I had just finished initiation when things started to calm down; or would they.  I only knew the medics of Crazyhorse and I was en route to meet many more throughout the squadron.  Up until that point I had only heard rumors of medic shenanigans and was quite curious.

I walked downstairs to the first floor in the barracks and took a left down the narrow cinder block hallway.  I could already hear the raucous.  I knocked on the first wooden door on the right with a beer in hand.

            “Come in!” someone yelled.

            Thru the door I went into a bloody massacre.  There were medics working in pairs giving each other IV bags of saline while drinking heavily and smoking cigarettes.  I looked to my left into a latrine with white tile flooring covered in blood.  Back to my front a medic was standing ready with a stopwatch.

             “Alright! Ready! Go!” he yelled.

            Not only were they giving each other IV’s, but they were seeing who could clean the site, stick and hook up the fluid the fastest.  This was impressive for the successful ones, but for everyone else, blood dripped to the floor and sometimes squirted thru the air.  My eyes were wide open.

            “7 seconds!” the medic with the stopwatch announced the top time. “Wanna try one, Vance?”

            “Um, nah, I’m good,” I said.

            Everyone shouted and drank as blood flowed well into the night.  These guys don’t mess around.  Even when they drank they found ways to be better medics. 

           

            Medics had to be the jokesters in most situations, because they didn’t have much to do unless somebody was wounded.  Grab-ass would be their clear field of expertise.  Most combat arms soldiers were always trying to prove how tough or manly they were.  Medics loved to exploit this.  For instance if two soldiers were grappling on the ground, a medic would encourage them to pick it up a notch to declare a winner.

            “Check his oil!” one would yell.

            “Check his oil?” I asked.

            “Yeah man, shove your thumb up his ass! Declare male dominance! Trust me, he’ll let go!”

            “I’m so glad I’m not wrestling right now.”

            Medics would also take advantage of a soldier talking trash while inebriated.  If that soldier claimed he could beat anyone at anything, a medic went to the go-to game of Tongue Chicken.  The game started with two completely heterosexual males standing a few feet apart.  Then both would be told to stick their tongues out and start moving towards each other.  The first one to bail out would lose.  In most cases the soldier would bow out immediately at the thought of French kissing another dude.  However, “tough guys” had to be taught a lesson.

            One night in my Tacoma apartment a bunch of guys were participating in “Fifth Night.”  On Fifth Night, nobody could leave for the bars until everyone finished a fifth of their choice of liquor.  A tactic that saved a lot of money as we would only be able to have a few drinks by the time we arrived piggy backing into a bar.  Towards the end of everyone’s bottle the trash talking commenced.

            “I can take you at tongue chicken, Bullis,” Woodrow threatened.

            “You, uh, sure about that?” Bullis responded as innocently as possible.

            “Only one way to find out.”

            I was sitting on my decrepit futon next to Woodrow as the words commenced while Bullis was standing in front of us.  Bullis then stuck his tongue out.

            “Aw shit, here we go,” I whined.

            Woodrow followed suit with his tongue, but remained seated as Bullis walked up and jumped on his lap.  Tongues are still out people.  Bullis gave Woodrow a chance to get out by briefly pausing, but Woodrow was so drunk he could barely hold his eyes open, much less even know a 200 lb man was on his lap.  In went the medic and tongues touched.  We all took pictures and laughed our asses off.  Woodrow still had no idea he was making out with a man.  When his eyes opened after a couple seconds of tongue touching, he turned away.

            “I win!” Bullis announced.

“Did that just happen?” Woodrow asked.

            “Your girlfriend is gonna be so pissed,” I replied.

            Never threaten a medic, especially if you’re a heterosexual male.  You lose every time.

Cox Rock, Tippin Wall

            “Kid Rock is going to be here tonight,” Jonesy said.

            “Yeah man, I hope we’re back from mission in time to see ‘em,” I replied.

            Our mission that night was to clear the train tracks of anything suspicious.  Insurgents had been using the area between the tracks and the elevated route Jackson paralleling the walls of F.O.B. Falcon in southern Baghdad to stage attacks and plant IED’s.  It was Christmas night and we wanted to get this done as quickly as possible to get back to see Kid Rock perform in the chow hall.  Priorities people.  We needed something to lift our spirits, so off we went into the night.

            “White 4, this is White 2. We’re stuck,” Staff Sergeant (SSG) Breastos said over the net.

            “2, 4. We just started 10 fucking minutes ago,” replied Sergeant First Class (SFC) Pons.

            “Roger.”

One of our many moments sinking into muddy sewage.  Smelled delicious!

            We rolled out into our AO like three ducks in a row with our Strykers.  Breastos’ truck was in the front as they ventured into murky ground.  It was hard to tell if the ground in front of us would hold because of the different layers of nastiness.  Human sewage would flow into any open area and mix with mud, giving the ground a greenish brown swirl that looked solid at night.  Our lead Stryker drove right in and sank on its left side.

            Our dismounts jumped out as the trucks maneuvered into position to pull out the stuck Stryker.  After trying several times with just one wench cable, we weren’t making any progress.  The Stryker kept sliding to its 9 o’clock.

            “Grab a snickers bar, gents,” I said.

            “Lets take the high ground and use two Strykers to pull ‘em out,” Shmiddie suggested.

            I directed our truck towards Jackson and we attached our wench cable to the vehicle in despair.  We were aligned to the stuck truck's 3 o’clock and prepared to be an anchor so it didn’t sink any further while the rear truck attempted to pull from the 6 o’clock position.

            If you know anything about wench cables then you know it takes a while to unwind them over 50 feet.  It didn’t help that our dismounts were trudging thru muddy sewage up to their knees.  As we were preparing the wenches, distant gunshots and explosions came closer.  Pons called in air support since we were struggling in the winter conditions and weren’t able to maneuver if a large enemy force decided to hit us.

Pulling the wench cable thru the muck... trust me, its there.

            “Shit!” hissed a soldier from the back right hatch after hearing a pop shot.

            “You OK back there?” I asked from the gunner’s hatch.

            “I think a sniper just took a shot at us.”

            “If you can hear a sniper’s shots, then you’re not being shot at.”

            “Good point.”

            Moments later two Blackhawks flew over to circle the area and scare off anyone thinking about taking advantage of our vulnerable position.  They announced their arrival by launching red and green flares 75 feet above our heads to light up the sky.

            “Wow! They fired Christmas colored flares for us!” Lemon rejoiced.

            I didn’t the heart to say, “You fucking tard. Those are just random.” 

            “Yeah man, Christmas colors for us.”

            We finally got the Stryker unstuck, but still had to complete the mission.  For the next hour we carefully and slowly moved down the train tracks looking for evidence of enemy activity while avoiding another sticky situation.  Finally we made it back to Falcon.  Most of the platoon was covered in mud as we shut down the trucks and hoped that Kid Rock was still performing for midnight chow.  We weren’t so lucky.

            “He fuckin’ killed it, man,” a friend from Alpha troop stated.

            “He’s all done?” I asked with a glimmer of hope that he wasn’t.

            “Yeah. He was shit housed, but still put on a show for us. He even got a little emotional.”

            “Great.”

            We pathetically moved back to the old Iraqi barracks we were living in and crashed for the night, all the while wondering how awesome the performance was.  It was still amazing Kid Rock took the time and flew into a dangerous area to perform for troops in dire need of a little entertainment.  We were so close.

            Famous people do USO tours all the time and its rare that you get an act that is mutually liked across the board such as Kid Rock.  Later that year we got a visit from a rapper I wasn’t too excited about, but I was off mission and went to check it out anyways.  He was in Baghdad to say “hi” and take pictures.  That’s more than I can say for most celebrities.

            “Gonna go see Paul Wall, Vance?” D asked.

            “Sure, why not,” I answered.

            It was late in our 15-month tour and we had the privilege of moving into the Green Zone for the last few months.  Hello paradise and good living.  We walked down to the coffee shop and waited in line as a member of Wall’s entourage passed out pictures we could get signed.  Yes, I still have it to this day.  

One soldier had a fake dental grill and put it in to pose with Paul Wall.  He thought it would be a good idea since Wall had colorful dental work as well.  Wall just looked at the soldier like he was crazy.  It didn’t help that the soldier kept saying, “Yo! What it do?!”  I kinda felt bad for Wall when dealing with fans like that.  I had another approach when it was my turn to meet him.

What it do?

“Hey, man,” I said like a normal human being.

“How ya doin?” he asked.

“We all appreciate you coming all the way out here.”

“No.  I appreciate you all.”

Wall looked me right in the eye with a straight face when he said that.  It hit me that he really gave a shit and wasn’t just doing this for a publicity stunt.  I had a newfound respect for someone I had just met.  Did I mention how surprised I was that I was taller than him?  I was so happy I was taller than someone famous.  Rappers all look so big and tough when they’re “pimpin’ hoes” on TV.  Bottom line is that Paul Wall was the real deal and his appearance gave us something to talk about for a day.

 

During my second deployment, we were on QRF when we got a call to come pick some people up at headquarters and give them a ride in a Stryker around C.O.P. Cobra.  I had no idea that the Marlboro-looking gentleman standing out of the hatch next to me was none other than country star, Aaron Tippin.  I thought we were giving some politician a ride for what we call a “Dog and Pony Show” where we pretend to be happy and get cleaned up for high-ranking personnel.  Not the case this time.  Tippin was quiet and completely respectful while on our Stryker.

Tippin stopped by with a small entourage and Fox news contributor Bill Cox.  Cox had some hilarious stories from his time in Vietnam, but out of complete respect for him I’ll keep those between him and us.  I had to leave their appearance early for QRF purposes, but I heard Tippin played five songs and had to leave.  I asked Mickey to ask both men to sign my guitar and they did so without hesitation.  That guitar hangs high in my house today.

Its not a celebrity's job to “support the troops” or not cry over a broken nail and report it on twitter, but it means so much to people overseas to simply make an appearance.  Just think of all the emotional times, whether good or bad, like at a wedding or a funeral in your life.  Now think about how good it felt to see someone’s face as they walked thru the door to hug you during those emotional times.  You didn’t care what they had to give you or what they had to say.  You only cared that they were there.  That’s how people overseas feel when celebrities simply show up and we’ll always be thankful.